Finally, after well over 6 years of being registered in Washington, I got my first Jury Summons. [View all]

[tavalon]

Now, you might think this is a thread complaining about having to to jury duty. Nope.

You might think it's a complaint about losing time and money at work, but you see, I'm one of those rare birds who is unionized and my contract requires that they pay me my regular pay for time away from work for jury duty. Yay, unions!

I do have one little complaint, maybe two. The first is that I work night shift so showing up at Court right after 12 hours of work will be tough. I'm going find out if the union will pay for me to have the night before off, but if not I'll take some PTO. My length of service is one trial or two days if I haven't been selected for a jury panel.

And that's my other beef. When I lived in Texas, my number for Jury Service came up frequently and I got to sit on a number of panels but was always dismissed. Why? Because they were all drug cases and I believe all drugs should be legalized and available and all the drug war money should be spent on educating people about the safe use of all drugs (prescription, non-presciption, licit and illicit). Really. It isn't a ploy. So, I've been thrown off a lot of jury panels. I'm hoping I don't get seated on a drug trial.

On the upside, I'm really psyched to start out my new year being on Jury Duty. It feels like right action, patriotic, good citizen type stuff. It's the same thing that psychs me about jury duty here. I'm part of the community and jury duty is part of my citizenship.